The Ultimate Guide to Local SEO Marketing

Gone are the days when only businesses having huge funds could undertake large-scale marketing tactics. Today, it has become all about leveraging the several digital channels to stay ahead of the competition by utilizing local SEO marketing. Several small businesses are now taking advantage of the internet to advertise their products or services.

And the truth is that they are indeed succeeding while doing this. The current digital era is allowing any type of business to take advantage of technology and let their audience know about their existence. With time, the digital marketing trend is increasing, and several companies are trying to rank higher on Google and other major search engines and get found by the target audience.

And why not do this? With 97% consumers taking to the internet to search for local businesses, it indeed makes sense to utilize local search engine marketing and get found. Local SEO marketing is the best option for a local business that wants to get found by consumers.

In simple words, local SEO marketing, which is also commonly called as local SEO, is here to stay. It is slowly but steadily becoming a significant part of a successful online marketing strategy.

What Exactly is Local Search Engine Marketing?

Local search engine marketing or local SEO means optimizing your business website so that it can be found by your target search users in localized searches.

With the ever-increasing use of mobile devices and the internet, local SEO was bound to happen. Google and other search engines keep modifying their algorithms and search technology to serve the users with the most relevant data and results. As such, it means that more priority will be given to targeted location-based search results in the coming future.

In Short, Local SEO Marketing Is All About:

Posting localized high-quality content on your website.

Creating and optimizing Google My Business listing.

Optimizing your online citations and directories.

Attracting as well as developing positive online reviews.

Hence, local SEO is important for all local businesses as it helps make the business more visible on search engines. Also, adds more of depth to local results and makes it easy and feasible for consumers to find a local business.

By utilizing the strategies mentioned in this guide, you can make sure that your website will be found whenever your target customers search online.

Best Local SEO Strategies

To position yourself better in local search, you will have to do three most important things, i.e. create and optimize your Google My Business account, update your website by improving its on-page SEO and engage with the Wild Wild Web.

Even though it may sound difficult to succeed in these three strategies, it is not. With perseverance and patience, you will achieve your desired result.

Optimize Your Google My Business Account:

Google My Business is now regarded as a crucial tool when it comes to local SEO marketing. Google feels comfortable to share content which it can easily support as well as verify.

As such, Google My Business is a tool which Google uses to help your local business meet their needs. If Google can successfully verify your business as genuine, it will then place your business in the sidebar space present in Google local search.

To make sure that you have properly optimized your website for Google My Business. You will have to get a Google My Business page verified, utilize Google Posts in your account, motivate your customers to post positive reviews online and respond to the reviews authentically.

Each new blog post is a new opportunity to get discovered by your target audience in search results. As such, each time you jot down new content, you should optimize it for the search engines by using relevant and high-volume keywords in the URL, headers, title, meta description as well as body.

Add Location Pages To Your Business Website:

If your business is operating in more than one location, then create location pages. Such pages provide your visitors with store hours, NAP, store descriptions, testimonials of happy customers and other things. It is significant to avoid any duplicate content in any of your location pages. In case of single location businesses, you should develop a locally descriptive ‘About Us’ page.

Create Local Content:

Google is getting smarter day by day, which means that content developers must now write for their respective users and not the search engines. However, local topics tend to attract a lot of audiences, and so, it’s significant to focus and write about local news in order attract your local audience. You must promote local industry news, gatherings, employees as well as other educational content in your blog.

Make Sure Of Keeping Your Website Mobile-Friendly:

Mobile search and Local search go hand in hand. On an average, 9 out of 10 smartphone users carry out local searches using their devices. As such, one of the best ways to let people access your website is by offering a mobile-friendly site.

Some reasons why people will utilize your website through their mobile devices is to find product information, search for your contact details, look for reviews. Hence, you should make it a point to make your website mobile-friendly for your prospects as well as your customers.

Engage With The Web And Directories:

By now, you might have understood how to optimize your website for Google My Business and update the site for improving its on-page SEO. Now, the next step is to learn how to use NAP consistency, directories as well as inbound links to help your business reach at the number one position on local search.

Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP) Consistency:

It is crucial for you to make it easy for people as well as search engines to reach your website. And one of the best ways to do this is to create your NAP consistency. But, make sure to include this as a craw-able HTML text in your website.

Also, ensure that you do not include NAP within a picture as it becomes difficult to crawl images from the search engines as compared to HTML text. The ideal location to place NAP in a website is at the header or footer.

Optimize Online Directories:

Besides optimizing your site on Google My Business, it is also important for you to get listed on other online directories such as Yelp, Citysearch, Merchant Circle, etc. For finding the most respectable and reputed directories to get listen on, you must see if the website of your local newspaper or your Chamber of Commerce is running one.

You can even type Google ‘(your location) directory’ to discover directories present your area. With so many consumers utilizing Google to discover local businesses, not listing your website on local online directories will be a big mistake.

Get Inbound Links With Relevance:

Every inbound link you have tells Google that you are a genuine company. Moreover, an inbound link also helps raise your domain authority. Hence, to get the best inbound links for your website, you can become a guest blogger, or consider partnerships and sponsorships. You can begin with your network and develop partnerships.

Consider the idea of sponsoring a meet-up, a webinar or community event to promote a local thing that you love and to build a relationship with important, influential people. This will in turn help get inbound links as well. You can also plan and become a guest blogger and act as a prominent resource provider in your industry. If you actively take part in community conversations then the buzz surrounding you will help get inbound links, media coverage and in social media growth.

Use Social Media And Add Posts To Google My Business:

The content shared on social media websites are considered vital by Google now than ever before. So after carving out a good Google My Business page, you should share it via social media to grab the attention of active social media users towards your business and boost your local SEO.

This guide to Local SEO Marketing is intended to help your business achieve local success. Although tactics or strategies above are one-off activities which you can create and forget about, such as NAP, other tasks like publishing relevant content and building reviews is an activity you are required to do on a daily basis to enjoy a long-term local search engine marketing success. Hence, keep both the activities in mind as you work towards attaining better online visibility and to see your website on Google’s first page.

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